We all pretty much assumed Lamborghini would chop the roof off the Aventador at some point. They did it with the Diablo, they did it with the Murciélago, and they did it with the Gallardo. The only question is when...and if the Environmental Protection Agency is to be trusted, it looks like the topless Aventador be arriving this year.

The EPA's fuel economy reference portal, fueleconomy.gov, lists two vehicles under Lamborghini's marquee for the 2012 model year: an Aventador Coupe, and an Aventador Roadster. Apart from the name, both listings are identical; the coupe and the roadster alike have a rating of 11 mpg city, 17 mpg highway, and 13 mpg combined.

So can we take this as a confirmation that an Aventador Roadster will be gracing showrooms this year? Well, let's just say we're skeptical. Why? Three reasons.

First, Lamborghini has said the Aventador is already sold out for its first year of production; with the plant cranking out hardtop LP700-4s as fast as possible, we kind of doubt they're gonna make people who forked over at least $376,000 for a coupe wait longer so they can build a yet-unannounced roadster.

This ties into our second reason: in the past, Lamborghini has always taken their time revealing new model variants. The Murciélago coupe arrived in 2001; the Murcie roadster showed up in 2004. The Gallardo was revealed in 2003; the Gallardo Spyder came in 2006. With such demand for the Aventador coupe, there's no reason for Lamborghini to rush the roadster out the gate. (Besides, we've heard pretty decisively the Roadster won't arrive until next year at the earliest.)

Finally, our third reason we don't fully trust this report: hard as it is to believe, the federal government can't always be trusted—especially when it comes to Lamborghinis. For example, fueleconomy.gov lists the 2010 Lamborghini Murciélago as having twodifferent seven-speed transmissions; the Murcie's sequential manual and stick-shift were both six-speeds. We're guessing somebody at the EPA, bored out of his mind by endless days typing fuel economy data into spreadsheets and with no one supervising him too closely, figured, "What the hell, they're gonna make a convertible version, might as well throw it in there."

We could be wrong, of course; there's a chance the Aventador Roadster could bow at, say the Frankfurt Motor Show this fall and arrive in dealerships shortly thereafter. But our collective gut advises against holding our breath. [via egmCarTech, fueleconomy.gov]